From Jam Session to Global Phenomenon

In 2008, Susan Gold attended a con­fer­ence in Sweden to dis­cuss her expe­ri­ences in teaching game design and building edu­ca­tion cur­ricula. She left with an idea that has since become a world­wide phe­nom­enon and an inno­v­a­tive tool—one that she said improves stu­dents’ and pro­fes­sionals’ game devel­op­ment skills and creativity.

On this trip, Gold—now a Pro­fessor of the Prac­tice in Northeastern’s Col­lege of Arts Media and Design—learned about the Nordic Game Jam, where par­tic­i­pants came together to col­lab­o­rate and design new games based on a common theme. After hearing about cre­ativity gen­er­ated by the event, she real­ized this con­cept could help solve the chal­lenge of teaching game devel­op­ment in an aca­d­emic envi­ron­ment. As she saw it, a game jam is an incred­ible expe­ri­en­tial learning oppor­tu­nity to apply the skills and tools learned in class and make it real—and she wanted to make it global.

The fol­lowing Jan­uary, Gold launched the first Global Game Jam. Now at Northastern, she will once again oversee the world­wide event this weekend, when the sixth annual Global Game Jam kicks off—bigger and better than ever.

“I fell in love with the inno­va­tion that hap­pens right before your eyes,” said Gold, who is asso­ciate director of the Game Design pro­gram at North­eastern. “You don’t have anyone saying, ‘That’s not going to sell.’ It’s about where can we go with this idea, let’s take a risk.”

The number of Global Game Jam loca­tions has grown annu­ally and vary by city and country. Since it’s a world­wide event in 73 coun­tries, the start times are stag­gered based on time zone; New Zealand will be the first to get started (that’s 10 p.m. Thursday EST).

Here’s how it works: par­tic­i­pants arrive at 5 p.m. Friday, at which time the event begins and the game jam’s theme is announced and everyone watches the annual keynote address. Next, par­tic­i­pants start brain­storming ideas and forming into small groups. From there, teams have 48 hours to develop their games, which are typ­i­cally video games but can also be board or card games, as long as they can be down­loaded from the web—you can build it. Groups can also choose to incor­po­rate optional con­straints called diver­si­fiers to fur­ther chal­lenge them­selves. For example, last year’s theme was the sound of a heart­beat, and one optional con­straint was that the game should make a pos­i­tive social impact.

The Global Game Jam is growing. Last year, par­tic­i­pants came together across 63 coun­tries cre­ated more than 3,000 games. This year the event is expected to grow by yet another 20 per­cent in par­tic­i­pa­tion and loca­tions. But over the years, Gold has seen the event pro­duce much more than a slew of wild and cre­ative new games. Par­tic­i­pants have formed con­nec­tions that have led to job oppor­tu­ni­ties and building new game stu­dios. Some lucky jam­mers have even met their sig­nif­i­cant others, and Gold recalled one coder in Israel going into labor hours after par­tic­i­pating in the jam.

North­eastern will again serve as one of the Boston area’s host sites this year—growing from 40 par­tic­i­pants in 2013 to 115 in 2014; reg­is­tra­tion for the North­eastern site is closed. The par­tic­i­pants will hole up for the weekend in Snell Library’s state-​​of-​​the-​​art Dig­ital Media Com­mons, which will host the event in col­lab­o­ra­tion with the Playable Inno­v­a­tive Tech­nolo­gies Lab and the North­eastern Center for the Arts. Casper Harteveld, PLAIT Lab director and an assis­tant pro­fessor in the Game Design pro­gram, will serve as the North­eastern site’s organizer.

In addi­tion, UK musi­cian, pro­ducer and dig­ital inno­vator, Thomas Dolby, best known for his 1982 hit “She Blinded me with Sci­ence,” will be on hand at North­eastern for Global Game Jam on Sunday. On Monday morning he’ll give a lec­ture on campus to dis­cuss some of the equip­ment he’s used in his 35 years in the music business.

An artist at heart, Gold joined North­eastern in the fall and has held aca­d­emic posi­tions in fine art and game edu­ca­tion pro­grams since 1999. Her work bridges art, sci­ence, tech­nology, industry, and academia.

Global Game Jam is not just for hard­core soft­ware devel­opers, Gold said. People of all dis­ci­plines and com­puter skills are encour­aged to par­tic­i­pate. The event’s inter­dis­ci­pli­nary nature is a key ele­ment to its suc­cess, she said, explaining how fas­ci­nating games can emerge when, say, stu­dents studying com­puter sci­ence, busi­ness, and psy­chology col­lab­o­rate on a project.

“Not only do you see how games are made, but you see how people think about cre­ativity,” she said. The reveal for all the games cre­ated during the Northeastern’s Global Game Jam will take place at 5 p.m. Sunday in the Raytheon Amphitheater.